Posts Tagged ‘Saints’

If you were in New Orleans on this day and you didn’t leave your home! Shame on you…. An estimated 800,000 people came out for New Orleans Saints Lombardi Gras! Starting the afternoon out with the boys, we began our original spot near Lee Circle, however, this proved to be over populated 2 hours before the start of the parade time. Moving over to Convention Center Blvd., we claimed our turf only to become over run as the hours progressed in the wicked cold wind. This was truly a night to remember…. If I could have bottled the energy from this crowd, this country wouldn’t be experiencing a cold front on the east coast!

After the chaotic aftermath of what an estimated 106 million individuals witnessed on Sunday is nothing short of the more fascinating Superbowl games in recent past. To understand the depth, magnitude, and emotion in this city, you first have to immerse yourself in it. Monday, fans still roamed the streets screaming “Who Dat” with just as much enthusiasm as on Sunday night, however just a lot more horse and a slight squeal to it. Sunday night after the win, picture a city grid-locked in a joyous but chaotic traffic jam, people dancing in the streets and on top of their cars (some even moving). Chaos….

Sidenote: The Real Fans was filmed in the place I’m currently living in.

In New Orleans, Rise Of Saints Symbolic Of City
by Debbie Elliott (NPR News)

“This might help you understand just how big the Super Bowl is in the Big Easy: some of New Orleans’ finest restaurants are closing on Sunday evening.

And on the first big weekend of Carnival, parades have been rescheduled around the big game, which matches New Orleans’ beloved Saints against the Indianapolis Colts.

And while voters here are choosing a mayor Saturday, even mayoral candidate Mitch Landrieu is still reveling in that overtime field goal that sent the Saints to Miami.

“Everybody without thinking about it reached out and held their neighbors’ hands and the entire stadium was holding hands at the time that that ball actually went through the uprights,” Landrieu recalls. “It was extraordinary. One of the greatest moments of my life. It was cathartic.”

For many, their team’s long climb to the Super Bowl is symbolic of New Orleans’ ongoing struggle to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Fans here have been wandering in the football desert for more than 40 years. They donned paper bags for a while — about the same time the paper-bag-masked Unknown Comic was a fixture on The Gong Show — but the “Aints” of old are no more.

Today, NOLA hit the upper 70′s and it sure felt like it. Sunny and warm, the city is jacked up and anxious for the weekend to get here. It can’t come soon enough. A buzz in the air, you almost wouldn’t even imagine that there will be a Mardi Gras going on because for the most part, everyone is talking “The Saints”! Check out this little pic from a bike ride taken in the Quarter this afternoon.